Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information architectures, and more particularly to improved methods for managing relationships in information architectures.
Description of the Related Art
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based topic-centric information architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. DITA divides content into small, self-contained topics that can be reused in different deliverables. The extensibility of DITA permits organizations to define specific information structures and still use standard tools to work with them. The ability to define company-specific and even group-specific information architectures enables DITA to support content reuse and reduce information redundancy.
One of DITA's strengths is that links between topics are most often controlled by files outside the content itself. In HTML, for example, a link from file A to file B must be contained inside file A itself. In DITA, this link can be contained inside a separate file, such as file C. Thus, the related linking structure can be stored, reviewed, and maintained in a single file or small set of files, called DITA maps. The links in these outside files, or DITA maps, can be considered to fall into two main types. The first type of link is a hierarchical link that is derived primarily from the navigation structure created inside a DITA map, and flows from a parent-child or sibling relationship between topics. The second type of link is a relationship link that is derived from relationship tables, which describe link relationships between topics.
To create a link between two or more topics using a relationship table, a table is created and topic references are inserted into the cells of the table. Links are created between any two topics in the same row, but in different cells of that row. Links can be specified as being unidirectional or bidirectional. It is also possible to specify “peer” links, or links to topics that are external to the current file.
In practice, the use of relationship tables during the authoring of information can be tedious and time-consuming. For example, if a link in a topic must be removed, an author must search through multiple rows of table data to locate and correct the link. When large numbers of topics and sizable relationship tables are present, this can be a mammoth task. Further, the native state of a relationship table does not allow for the easy viewing of all links to and from a topic—an author must initiate additional processing steps to see such information. The additional processing necessary to view the information required by an author reduces the ability of the author to manage the relationships between topics as represented by links.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art and more particularly for a more efficient way of managing relationships in the Darwin Information Typing Architecture.